Successful solutions to pressing social ills tend to consist of innovative combinations of a limited set of alternative ways of perceiving and resolving the issues. These contending policy perspectives justify, represent and stem from four different ways of organizing social relations:...

Scientific research programs have a life cycle consisting of a sequence of overlapping subprograms. Each subprogram works within set boundaries, driven by the internal logic of its theoretical and empirical puzzles; outside of the boundaries lie the blind spots of the subprogram. Over time,...

Self-interested individuals pursue their goals rationally taking into account the constraints imposed by their environment and best-responding to the strategic behavior of other individuals: when applied to collective action, economic theory predicts undersupply. Meanwhile, the behavior of...

In this article, the author extends the basic repeated prisoners' dilemma to allow for the linkage of punishment strategies across issues (issue linkage) as well as decentralized third-party enforcement (player linkage). The concepts of issue and player linkage are then synthesized to develop...